Gore won a standing ovation as the Democratic convention kicked off by telling a delighted audience that the United States had become "the greatest terrorist and the largest rogue state" in the world. He was also applauded loudly after announcing that today "only corporate America enjoys representation".

This was Gore Vidal, it should be said, former Democratic politician, novelist, playwright, historian, mischief-maker and cousin of young Al. He was addressing a full house at the Leo Baeck temple just opposite that symbol of corporate authority, the Getty Centre, as the delegates assembled for the first day of the convention.

Vidal lamented that "50 years ago I used to be the only Gore" and used his presentation to a "town hall" meeting organised by the magazine the Nation to urge whoever was the next president to use his entire first term of office to "tame the American military". He attacked the Pentagon as a major reason for the collapse of the democratic system in the United States and for the waste of public money.

"Congress has been hijacked by corporate America and its enforcers," Vidal said. "Our empire is now the greatest terrorist of all."

He said that since the Soviet Union "unsportingly disbanded", the world's 1bn Muslims have been demonised as wild fanatics in order to justify the continuation of military spending.

Since 1946, he said, $7.1 trillion had been spent on defence while national debts totalled $3.6 trillion.

Vidal also attacked the American drug laws saying that "we started the damn country" to get away from such restrictions and suggested that the founding fathers had included many laudanum addicts. "Anything taken for joy is against God's will," had become the justification for the drugs laws, he said.

People had forgotten the effects of prohibition, he said: "We have become the United States of Amnesia." He accused the US of "swaggering round the world smashing countries like Colombia" and finished his address to a standing ovation and cries of "run, Gore, run!" from the audience.

Tom Hayden, now a Californian senator but arrested at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago during the anti-war demonstrations, voiced his support for the thousands who have already taken to the streets of Los Angeles in some of the rolling demonstrations taking place during the week.

"The Democratic party should not try and stigmatise the people who raised hell in Seattle and gave birth to a new generation of radicalism," said Mr Hayden.

"More and more people are feeling that there is no other way than to get out on the streets. It is a great blessing instead of a danger to the city of Los Angeles. Everyone in this room was someone real and vibrant before they became middle-aged."

Jesse Jackson Jr, 35, congressman and delegate at the convention, said that people now believed that they had a right to a gun but not a right to a proper education. A few miles away his father addressed a rally outside Loews hotel in Santa Monica to call for union rights for the hotel workers there.

The gatherings were just two of dozens due to be held this week by those who suggest that the real issues are not being addressed by the convention. The first of the major demonstrations, in support of the journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal who has been on death row in Pennsylvania since 1981, took place on Sunday as did a large picket of Gap. There were protests yesterday to support abortion rights and highlight "corporate shame".